The big win for Blizzard here is allowing for chat across games

Diablo 3 launched this past week and there's no question that there will be some sort of impact on World of Warcraft. In today's WoW Factor, we take a look at potential changes WoW players might see as a result of D3's arrival.

The largest impact will come in the next few months as players move from WoW to Diablo before the expansion. It is only a guess that population numbers will go down for a while as people enter Diablo over the summer. This in some ways gives WoW a break. The big win for Blizzard here is allowing for chat across games. This technology allows for WoW Guilds and Diablo players alike to chat and plan their schedules accordingly. I think Blizzard made the right call with cross game chat through Battle.net as it keeps their community together regardless of what game they are playing.